


In Hiding

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21809164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: After his mother is killed and he himself threatened, a young man moves into Cascade National Forest and lives there, in hiding.
Relationships: Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	In Hiding

**Author's Note:**

> The segment in italics is taken direct from the transcript of The Switchman.

In Hiding

by Bluewolf

The dark-colored vehicle was usually parked a few yards from the main road at the side of a barely noticeable rough track that accessed the forest. Branches had been draped carefully over it, further hiding it.

Its owner moved it for a day every three weeks or so, driving to one of several small townships inside a fifty-mile radius to buy food. He never went to the same one on two successive visits, and if the town had more than one store, he alternated which one he went to, wanting to remain totally anonymous. If asked, he always claimed to be on holiday and just passing through. Then, having bought supplies for the next three weeks, he drove off, taking an often circuitous route back to his 'base'. Occasionally he made a two-day trip back to Cascade and withdrew from his bank enough money to last him several months, and see to any necessary business.

About half a mile from where he left the car, a small tent blended into the undergrowth; a few yards from it, a metal box acted as a larder. It, too, was covered by an interlocked 'sheet' of undergrowth carefully woven together. Fresh vegetable food he could easily obtain from the forest around him, though much was seasonal. Fresh protein he could get through fishing. He moved two or three times in the first year as he looked for the best place to camp, and finally he settled on a site he thought was pretty well ideal.

It wouldn't have been impossible for someone who knew he was in the area to find car, tent or 'larder', but he was confident that if he remained in his self-chosen seclusion, drawing no attention to where he was, and with his bank the only place he obtained money, and therefore the only place he could be identified as ever spending time in, he could remain hidden indefinitely.

His days were occupied in walking, gathering plant food, occasionally reading - he kept a small library of his favorite books in the car - or writing, using a small portable typewriter.

That writing took a number of directions, depending on his mood. He had already had several articles printed in different magazines, and from time to time he gave his agent another one; these provided fairly moderate one-off payments. He was working on a book for young adults, the third in a series - the first two were already published and earning him a reasonable amount in royalties. He was also working on a science fiction book for adults, and - intermittently - a historical/travel book intended for children that was looking at different countries from a child's point of view.

And that was the other thing he did when he visited Cascade; he went to see his agent. Norman Alexander dealt with most of his business, including sending his manuscripts to the publisher; when there was a manuscript in his (or the publisher's) hands, the man who wrote using the name John B Cassidy visited Cascade more often until word was received back from the publisher. If some kind of rewrite was needed he stayed with Norman, his car carefully hidden in full sight in the parking lots of two 24-hour supermarkets and moved a couple of times a day. Payment for his stories went to Norman, who paid the money into the bank.

Norman knew why 'John' lived as he did. He understood. It was lucky, he thought, that 'John' was an introvert, happy with his own company, and able to fill his days with the things that he enjoyed. 'Loneliness' seemed to be a word that wasn't in his vocabulary.

'John' didn't have to live in America - writing gave him a fairly steady income, but he had also inherited a reasonable amount of money from his grandparents and his mother. But as he had told Norman nearly four years previously, moving abroad seemed too much like running away.

Because four years earlier - his mother had been murdered, and he had seen and identified the killer. But someone had screwed up when the man was arrested, the proper procedure wasn't followed and the killer was released on that technicality. However, the killer had made a threat that he would kill the man who had accused him.

'John' had initially passed it off as bluster; but when, two days later, he was nearly hit by a car running a red light, he realized that it had not been bluster. He could, he knew, appeal to the police; but he also knew that realistically he couldn't expect them to protect him indefinitely. And so he went into hiding.

Now, four years later, he had no way of knowing if Don Mitchell was still looking for a chance to kill him. But he had fallen into a way of life that suited him surprisingly well, and - despite the discomfort of winter cold and the fear that his footprints in the snow might betray his presence to someone - he found himself with no real wish to return to an urban existence.

In the summer he had no such worries.

***

_Jim Ellison walked past his ex-wife into Simon Banks' office, ignoring her rather snide remark about 'staking out a dumpster', and also ignoring the cup of coffee that Simon was offering him._

_Simon looked at him. "All right, Jim, what's going on?"_

_"I need a leave of absence."_

_"Are you nuts?"_

_"I don't know," Jim said, his voice unhappy. "Maybe. I ran a blood test to see if I'd been drugged, but I'm clean." He dropped into the visitor's chair._

_"Hey, slow down. What drugs?" Simon asked_

_"How else can I explain what happened to me out there, Simon? I fell off the back of that bike because I was seeing things!"_

_"Look, you were stressed, okay?" Simon said. "You heard something. You smelled some fumes. You got dizzy. You fell off the bike. What, now you want a vacation? Come on. Is this the guy that toughed it out in the jungle for a year and a half? Take a shower, get some aspirin, and go back to work. 'Cause right now the only thing I want more than my divorce papers is an arrest."_

_"Hey, this isn't a joke," Jim protested. "I lost the prime suspect, Simon, and I don't even know how."_

_"Guilt's a good motivator, but don't take more than your share," Simon growled. "Air support lost him in the trees. The road block didn't snag him either. All right, look, you can take the afternoon off. See a couple of specialists if that'll make you feel any better. But that's all the slack I can cut you, Jim."_

_"Well, that's not enough. I'm losing control of my senses, Simon. I don't know how else to describe it. It's scaring the hell out of me!"_

_Simon shook his head. "All right, so let me get this straight. This is all about you being scared?"_

_"Yep."_

_"So the Switchman psyched you out? He's gonna make you fold?"_

_Jim stood. "All I know is I can't do my job this way. So either you grant me a leave - or I'll take one."_

***

Simon made a virtue of necessity, and gave Jim time off.

Jim's first visit was to the doctor, which accomplished exactly nothing. The doctor could find nothing wrong. He did comment on how well Jim could hear and see but indicated that there was nothing wrong with being able to see or hear well.

That, Jim could accept; he knew there was a range of hearing from deaf to excellent; a range of sight from blind to somewhere better than 20/20 vision. But he seemed to have sight and hearing above the top end of the scale, and taste, sense of smell and touch all up there too. God, even his sense of direction was as near infallible as made no difference! And while he wore a watch, it was more for appearance than anything else. He always knew, to within a couple of minutes, what time it was.

He went home from the hospital feeling more than a little discouraged, and spent half the night lying awake thinking, aware all the time of voices in the background, a child screaming, taps (not in his loft - he checked when he first became aware of them) dripping... and decided that he would head off in the morning for Cascade National Forest and two or three weeks of solitude. There would be sounds there too, but natural sounds - the soft and restful call of birds, the trickle of running water, the soughing of wind in the trees...

He spent the early morning packing camping gear into his truck, some clothes into a suitcase, and a selection of fresh food into a cooler, then headed off for Cascade National Forest. A few miles into it he turned off the main road onto a side road. He parked in a small open area some twenty miles from the road, lifted his gear onto his back and set off deeper into the forest.

Jim knew exactly where he was going - a clearing roughly a mile from where he had parked. He had camped there several times in the past, though he hadn't had the time to camp for more than one night for the last three years.

Perhaps that was part of the trouble. He hadn't been taking any of his leave entitlement - Simon's claim that he needed Jim's expertise pretty well 24/7 wasn't new, and while it was thoughtless rather than anything else, Simon had been discouraging him from taking the time off that he was due, any time he had suggested having a few days off. The only break Jim had had in four years had been for his honeymoon... and even that had been cut short by a desperate call, not only for him but for Carolyn as well.

And while he was a workaholic, even the most obsessed-with-getting-the-job-done person needed the odd day or two off.

He reached the clearing he had in mind and pitched his tent. That done, he stretched luxuriously and felt himself relax.

Silence.

Somewhere in the distance he could hear a bird calling, but it was a gentle, soothing sound, not the raucous cacophony of too many people talking at once. The stream that ran past his clearing had a gentle cadence, not the sudden harsh swoosh of a newly-turned on faucet or the irritating drip-drip-drip of one that was not properly turned off. The smell of the trees was refreshing, not the sour acrid smell of sweat, common in gym locker rooms, that he had begun to realize filled the bullpen.

Jim knew that one day he would have to go back to Cascade, go back to work... and he was already beginning to wonder how he would ever be able to tolerate being surrounded by human noise and smell...

***

Four days into his break, Jim was walking - he tried to tell himself it was hiking, but really it was too leisured a pace - up the side of the river, when he suddenly came on a young man standing in the water about two feet from the bank, fishing.

Jim wasn't aware of having made a noise, but the man looked round and for a moment Jim could have sworn that there was a just a touch of apprehension in the gaze that was turned on him; and then the man smiled.

"Sorry," Jim said. "I didn't expect to see anyone - "

"Come to that, neither did I."

"I'm camped about three miles downstream," Jim said. "I expect to be there for another two or three weeks, but if you're here to fish I'll make sure I stay away from the river."

"No, I'm just here for the day," the man said. "I'm camped over there - " The sweep of his arm took in a full hundred degrees. Jim grinned to himself. Talk about being cautious! But at the same time he didn't blame the guy, who had to be aware that he was several inches smaller, and a fair number of pounds lighter, than most of the men he met.

And then a harsh voice said, "Hands up, both of you!" Jim glanced sideways even as he obeyed.

Another man stood there at an angle where his gun easily covered them both. His attention was more on the man fishing than on Jim, but Jim knew better than assume the gunman would be oblivious of any move he might make.

"You hid your traces well, Sandburg," the man went on, "but I'm very patient. All I had to do was wait, watching your bank, because I knew you'd have to go there eventually."

"My name is Cassidy," the fisherman said - but Jim, remembering the trace of apprehension he had seen, knew that whatever he was calling himself, his name really was Sandburg. And if this man was hunting him... calling himself by a different name made a lot of sense.

But why was this man hunting Cassidy/Sandburg? Jim's cop instincts were suddenly on full alert.

He had to let the gunman underestimate him - which wouldn't be easy, given his general physique. And now the man was turning his attention to Jim - without totally removing it from the object of his... hate?

"I think you don't know Sandburg," the man said. "It's just chance that you're here?"

"I'm on a short camping holiday," Jim said. "I was hiking up the river and saw him. We were just exchanging a polite 'Hello'. If you'd waited another two or three minutes before you approached him, I'd have been on my way."

The gunman smiled, and Jim knew instantly why he hadn't waited. He was a killer, someone who wanted, possible even needed, to kill - and the opportunity of two victims instead of just one must have been irresistible.

"Just what do you have against him anyway?"

"He accused me of killing his mother."

"And did you?" Jim was careful to make the question non-confrontational.

The gunman turned his attention fully to Jim. "She asked for it!"

"What - did she say, 'I want to die, please kill me'?" Jim was hoping that Cassidy/Sandburg would be able to seize the chance to duck out of sight. "But even if she did, even if you did what she wanted, the law says that's wrong. Hell, an actual suicide attempt, even if it fails, counts as a crime; just assisting a suicide counts as a crime. Killing someone who asks you to would, at best, be called 'assisting a suicide'."

Out of the corner of his eye Jim saw something flying towards the man - and then something hit the side of the gunman's head and he fell. The fist-sized rock that hit him landed on the ground beside him, bounced once and rolled to a stop.

Jim sprang forward, his hands going to his belt. He kicked the gun away, yanked the man's hands behind his back and fastened them together with his belt, then hauled him to a nearby tree and was fastening the man to it when Cassidy/Sandburg joined him. He grinned at the young man. "Well done!" he said. "Now - who is he, and what's your version of what he said?"

"His name's Don Mitchell. Four years ago, he asked Mom to move in with him. When she said no, he killed her. He didn't know I was there or he'd probably have killed me, too. Anyway, I went to the police and reported it - "

"Where was that?"

"Oh - Seattle. They arrested him, but... I'm not sure what went wrong but somehow the proper procedure wasn't followed, and he was released. He... He threatened me then, said he'd get me, but I thought it was just bravado... but two days later I barely escaped a car accident - the car ran a red light and didn't even try to slow down - caught a glimpse of his face behind the wheel, and realized he meant it... so I went into hiding. I've been living in Cascade Forest for the last four years... "

"Well, he'll get proper procedure this time," Jim said as he groped in his pocket for his cell phone, not entirely sure he'd get a decent signal. "What was your mother's name?"

"Oh - Naomi Sandburg."

Jim did get a signal. "Hi, Simon. I need a car here - or, better, a helicopter - I've got an attempted killer here."

'You... Jim, only you could take a few weeks off and end up catching a killer. What happened?'

Jim explained quickly, then added, "He's moving - I'd better go and mirandize him."

'How will we find you?'

Jim gave quick directions, then turned his attention to his prisoner. "Ah - Mr. Mitchell. I'm Detective Ellison, Major Crime, Cascade. You are under arrest - " He finished the Miranda, then added, "And I think we can add to that, the murder, four years ago, of Naomi Sandburg."

The look Mitchell gave him was vicious. "You tricked me!"

Jim's smile was totally insincere. "You had a gun pointing at us. I was just keeping you talking till I got a chance to jump you. But what I said was the truth - if you'd waited until I moved on before you approached Mr. Sandburg, you probably could have killed him without anyone knowing who was responsible for his death. If you dragged him and his gear into the trees and out of sight, even if I went back to my camp still following the river, when I didn't see him I'd have assumed he'd given up for the day and gone back to his camp, wherever it was. And if you'd done that - who was to realize he'd actually been killed, rather than just having a fall on his way back to his camp and been killed by an animal?

"But when you saw me speaking to him, you decided that you could kill both of us, and you'd have enjoyed doing it."

Mitchell glared at him again, and Jim knew that this was a man who would never stand trial; he would be declared insane, and probably spend the rest of his life in Conover.

Jim sat on a boulder, watching the man carefully. When Sandburg joined him, he murmured softly, "You throw a mean rock."

"I was pretty good at baseball when I was still at school," he replied as softly. He was silent for a moment, then said, "I suppose... I can pack up now, and move out of hiding."

"Well, I'll be making sure our 'friend' there is properly processed this time," Jim said, "though I'd guess he'll end up in Conover rather than Starkville. Where will you go?"

"Cascade," was the reply.

"But you said you were in Seattle when your mother was killed - "

"Yes, but given the circumstances - do you think I'd want to go back there?"

"No, I don't suppose you would." He raised his head, hearing an engine in the distance.

A minute later, Sandburg said, "Is that a helicopter I hear?"

"I think so," Jim replied. "When I phoned my boss just now, he said he'd send one. Quickest way of getting him - " he nodded at his prisoner - "behind bars." He sighed. "I'll have to go in too. So much for my break! Incidentally, can you tell me where you'll be staying? Because we'll need a statement from you."

"I'm not sure. I've stayed with my agent for a day or two when I've needed to be... well, within reach of civilization, so I could ask him for a bed for a couple of nights, but I'll really need to find an apartment if I'm going to move out of the forest." He broke off as a helicopter flew into sight.

"Wave it down!" Jim said. "I'm sure they'll have seen us, but - "

Sandburg nodded, moved towards the river and began to wave. Moments later the helicopter landed.

Simon had come himself. He jumped down. "Only you, Jim. Only you!" He turned his attention to Sandburg. "And you are?"

"John - ah, sorry, Blair Sandburg. I've been going by the name John Cassidy for the last four years. I'd hoped that he - " he nodded towards Mitchell - "would think that I'd left America, but somehow he found out that I was here... "

"So what's your story?"

"Four years ago he killed my mother, then tried to kill me."

"And he would cheerfully have killed Mr. Sandburg today, and me as well," Jim said. "I know I'll have to come in, and I've just been telling Mr. Sandburg he'll need to make a statement - "

Simon nodded. "Yes. Where have you been staying, Mr. Sandburg?"

"I'm camped about half a mile over that way." His gesture was still pretty vague. "But I can move into Cascade now... at least for the moment." He was watching Mitchell being taken into the helicopter. "As long as he isn't released the way he was in Seattle - "

"He won't be," Simon said confidently. "If only because this time he threatened a cop. But even without that... whatever went wrong in Seattle won't go wrong in Cascade. Because our Chief of Police is obsessive about the correct procedure being followed. Jim told me Mitchell was regaining consciousness, so he had to mirandize the man. He'll be mirandized again at least twice before he's finally booked. That's the commonest failure in procedure. Someone forgetting about the Miranda.

"Now, Jim - can I depend on you for a run back to Cascade?"

"Yes, of course. We'll have to hike back to my camp and then to the truck - "

"That's all right." He waved to the helicopter pilot, indicating 'Go!'

The pilot waved back, then the chopper rose smoothly into the air, swung around and soared away.

"Now, Mr. Sandburg," Simon went on. "Can we help you get back to Cascade?"

"No, I'll manage," Blair said. "But thanks. I'll call into the police station in the morning - Major Crime, you said? Detective Ellison?"

Jim nodded, and he and Simon watched as Sandburg disappeared into the trees.

"Right," Jim said. "Down river - and downhill!"

***

Alone again, Blair paused for a moment. He could depend on Norman for a bed for the night... but he would have to find somewhere - a small apartment - as quickly as possible. He couldn't take advantage of Norman's generous nature now that the immediate danger from Mitchell was passed.

He sighed. It was good to know that Mitchell was once again in police custody, and that he was free to move into Cascade... yet at the same time he found himself oddly regretting that he would no longer be living the life of a hermit. He had found the mostly solitary life he had been leading surprisingly pleasant.

Then he gave himself a mental shake and headed for his camp.

He needed two trips to get everything back to his car, then made one last trip back to make sure he had left everything as he had found it four years previously - well, nearly as he had found it; there was the fresh earth where he had filled in the latrine/rubbish dump a little way from his camp as soon as he arrived back at it, but the grass would soon cover it, as it had covered the other ones he had dug over the years.

Yes; everything was as tidy as he could leave it. He headed back to his car and set off for Cascade.

***

Norman greeted him with a degree of surprise; he hadn't been expecting to hear from 'John' for another week or two.

"Mitchell is under arrest again," Blair said quietly. "He managed to track me down, but he made the mistake of approaching me when I was talking to another camper I'd just met. And that camper was a Cascade detective having a few days' break. I've to go into the police station in the morning, but after that I'll make finding an apartment a priority."

"You don't need to do that," Norman said. "Do that and you might well end up in a pretty run-down hole. You can stay here and take time to find somewhere decent."

"Well, I'll start looking anyway," Blair said, "and thanks."

***

And so in the morning he headed off to the police station, gave his statement, exchanged a few words with Detective Ellison, then headed off in search of an apartment.

He found one surprisingly quickly. An elderly tenant had been taken into hospital a month earlier, and had died within twenty-four hours. The relatives had finished clearing the apartment three or four days earlier, and it was now available for let, with the option to buy. Blair expressed an interest in buying, but not until he'd lived there for a few weeks and satisfied himself that the area was convenient for anything he might want.

He would, the owner said, be able to move in that day.

It was, of course, unfurnished. Well, he could make buying some furniture a priority for the next day; as it was, he moved most of the few boxes of his possessions from the trunk of his car (where they had lived for the last four years) and into the apartment. Then he headed back to Norman's.

When he told Norman the address, the agent immediately approved. "It's a good area," he said.

"I'll spend tomorrow getting furniture," Blair said, "then get on with finishing Nose of a Dog. I think that'll be the last one of the series, though. I've got a travel book for children first drafted - it probably won't have the same appeal as the fiction, but it's something I want to do. And it's not as if I'm depending on the income from my writing - though it'll mean a drop in the fee I pay you."

"John - oh, should I say 'Blair' now?"

"Whichever you prefer," Blair said. "I don't mind."

"You've been 'John Cassidy' to me pretty well as long as I've known you," Norman said. "But you've always given me a fee that's in excess of the 10% I get from most of my writers."

"You've been more to me that just an agent," Blair said. "You've handled so many things for me, never complained when I was out of touch for weeks at a time... Anyway, I'll be out of your hair and in my own apartment tomorrow. And all I can say is 'Thank you'."

***

Having thought about it overnight, Blair went to a charity store for furniture. He wouldn't need much; a table, two or three chairs, a bookcase, a kitchen unit to store tins and packets. A bed? Well, possibly, but his air bed and sleeping bag would do; if he didn't see a comfortable-looking bed, he could manage until he did see a bed that suited him.

He got everything he needed, as well as a desk. One of the chairs he bought was a very comfortable armchair. He arranged with the shop to get everything delivered that afternoon. Another was a useful chair bed - serving as a chair during the day, it folded out into a surprisingly comfortable bed for night-time. And he got everything for less than he would have expected to pay for just the armchair.

While he waited for the furniture to arrive, he wrote out a card with his name and put it on the mail box marked '205' just inside the front door of the block. Not that he expected any mail, but there would eventually be some. Then he got the men who delivered the furniture to put it roughly where he felt would be most convenient for him, tipped them, and set up his typewriter on the desk. Time to finish his current book.

***

He hadn't been working long when he heard a knock on the door.

Already? Did Norman - the only person to have his address - need a word? He crossed to the door, quickly fastened the chain and opened the door.

"Detective Ellison?"

"Hello, Mr. Sandburg. I saw the name on the mail box, and wondered if it could possibly be you."

Blair unfastened the chain and opened the door. "Come in. Coffee?"

"No, thanks. I just - well - I didn't expect to see you here."

"I was looking for an apartment yesterday and found this one."

"When did Mrs. Westman move out?"

Blair frowned slightly. "Apparently she died a month ago; her relatives just finished clearing the apartment."

Ellison looked slightly stunned as he sat. "Died? I knew she was pretty old, but - " He shook his head. "I live next door to here, in apartment 307, but I've been a bit out of touch recently - we've been really busy. That was why I was having that break." He hesitated then went on. "But if you've been hiding out for the last four years, how do you have the money for this?"

Blair grinned. "I write," he said. "I've had a few articles published and two books for young adults - there's a third in the series nearly finished. But I think that'll be the last Sentinel book. I'm planning a sort of geography-travel book aimed at a youngish readership once I've finished Nose of a Dog."

"Nose - ? That's an odd name for a book."

"Ah, well... About six years ago I came across an old book, written in the middle of last century; The Sentinels of Paraguay. It was about these men who had heightened senses and acted as protectors of their tribes. There was never more than one per village, unless he only had a heightened sense of - say - touch, in which case there might be another one as well. Anyway, once I got the idea of writing as a career, I decided to make my hero one of those sentinels; a man with five heightened senses who started a detective agency, and used his senses to track down criminals, missing children, you name it. The first one was The Sentinel - Eyes of a Hawk; the man used his eyes to find clues. The second was The Sentinel - Ears of a Bat - yes, using his hearing. This third one uses his sense of smell. But I'm not sure how to use sense of taste or touch, so this one will be the last sentinel book."

Ellison was staring at him. "Heightened senses?"

"They do exist, though maybe not at the level Burton indicated."

"Burton?"

"Oh, sorry - Richard Burton, the man who wrote The Sentinels of Paraguay."

"Wasn't he an actor?"

"Same name, different man. This one lived in the eighteen hundreds - an explorer-linguist-anthropologist-several other things."

"Heightened senses?"

"If you're interested I'll lend you Burton's book."

"Please." There was a slightly stunned look on Ellison's face.

Blair crossed to his newly acquired bookcase and took a thick, leather-covered book from it. He put it on the desk beside the typewriter.

"I won't be going out much," Blair said. "So any questions you might have - I'm pretty sure to be here."

***

And he was, the next evening when Jim knocked at his door again.

"Chief? I think... I've been having some trouble with my senses, none of the doctors I've seen have offered any helpful suggestions... but I think I might be one of these sentinels."

"I don't know terribly much... but based on ideas I've put into these stories... I might be able to help you..."

And he did.


End file.
